What you choose on your ballot is confidential, but whether or not you return a ballot is tracked by election officials, making sure that only one ballot per voter is tabulated. The Weekly requested public records from the Monterey County Elections Department to show whether candidates for local office have voted in seven elections (both general elections and primaries) since 2020.
Of 155 candidates for local offices this year, only 78, or 50 percent, voted in all seven elections for which they were registered to vote in Monterey County.
Collectively, candidates missed 193 opportunities to vote, reflecting nearly 18 percent of elections in the past six years. (Some candidates challenged ballots on which signatures did not match or that were received late, but this analysis is counting those as returned ballots.)
In general, candidates’ voter participation was higher during general elections than in primaries, reflective of the electorate overall.
Only eight candidates, including Vince Malfitano, who is running for mayor of Monterey, missed their opportunity to vote in the general election of November 2024, when Donald Trump was elected as president.
Malfitano also missed the 2020 primary, 2022 primary and the 2022 general election.
Malfitano did not respond for comment by the Weekly’s deadline.
Other candidates who did not return a ballot in the 2024 presidential election are Gabriela Garcia Mora for Greenfield Unified/Greenfield Union School Districts (she appears twice on the ballot due to a potential district reorganization with Measure J appearing on ballots); Nereida Marisol Gonzalez for San Ardo Union Elementary School District; Nayelia Camacho also for the San Ardo Elementary School District; Catalina Rosa Torres for North Monterey County Unified School District; Erin Askew for Gonzales Unified School District; and Nancy Reyes and Sofia Ramirez, who are both running for seats on the Hartnell College board.
Hartnell candidate Reyes, who is running for District 7, has not cast a ballot in any of the past seven elections, primaries or general elections, election records show. (Reyes did not respond to a request for comment by deadline.)
Hartnell candidate Ramirez, who is running to represent Area 6, did not return a ballot in five of the past seven elections, including all primaries since 2020.
For Hartnell Area 5, Felicia Perez Kausin skipped primaries in 2022 and 2024, election records show. (In 2024, she says she was caring for her then-104-year-old World War II veteran father, who died at 105.)
On the Monterey Peninsula College board of trustees, incumbent Trustee Rosalyn Green did not vote in the past two primaries (2026 or 2024). Green, who also volunteers at polling places—including in the 2026 primary, she says—believes she has voted in every single election, and plans to follow up with the Election Department. “This has always been a fear factor for me—do they actually get the votes, and count the votes, that are going in by mail?” she says. “I don’t know why there is no record of my vote.”
All candidates for mayor in Marina, Del Rey Oaks, Seaside, Sand City and Greenfield, some of whom are running unopposed, have voted in all elections since 2020 for which they were registered.
In Pacific Grove, records show current Mayor Nick Smith voted in all seven elections since 2020, and challenger Luke Coletti missed one, the June 2022 primary. (“I recall being very busy dealing with City Council issues at that time,” the former councilmember says, also noting that there were no P.G.-specific issues on that ballot.)
In the three-way race for Gonzales mayor, only Councilmember Liz Silva voted in all seven elections. Andrew Castillo missed the 2024 primary, the first Monterey County election for which he was registered. Henry McDowell has no voting history in Monterey County and was not a registered voter for any previous election.
In Carmel, Hans Buder, a current councilmember, missed primary elections in 2020 and 2022. Challenger David Boland was not registered to vote in Monterey County until 2024, and has cast a ballot in both elections since then.
“I like dropping off my ballot in person at the Sunset Center, which was behind both instances,” Buder says. “One time I had to fly out of town on short notice to deal with a construction issue at a property. The other time our family got Covid and things got hectic dealing with three sick kids and I never got the chance to drop the ballot off or mail it.”
In the race for Salinas mayor, Hezekiah Gonzalez became eligible at 18 for the first time in 2024, when he voted in the presidential election, then he did not return a ballot in the June 2026 primary. Daniel Muñoz, who was not yet registered to vote in Monterey County in early 2020, voted in three of the past six elections, records show.
Candidates Peter Szalai and Dennis Donohue, the current mayor, returned ballots in all seven of the past elections.
Monterey County Registrar of Voters Gina Martinez advises voters—not just candidates for office, but everyone—to vote early whenever possible, either by mail or in-person at pop-up events before Election Day. "We encounter so many voters and there are many decisions voters make along the way,” she says. “It is another plug for voting early, take it off your to-do list, so if life does happen, you've already done your civic duty."
Voters can return ballots until polls close at 8pm on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 3.